ually on, and
made me explore with a constantly increasing zest the great literary
personalities of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. Thus my chapter on Henrik
Ibsen grew into a book of three hundred and seventeen pages, which was
published a year ago, and must be regarded as supplementary to the
present volume. The chapter on Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson was in danger of
expanding to similar proportions, and only the most heroic condensation
saved it from challenging criticism as an independent work. As regards
Norway and Denmark, I have endeavored to select all the weightiest and
most representative names. The Swedish authors Johan Ludvig Runeberg,
Mrs. Edgren, and August Strindberg, and the Dane Oehlenschlaeger,
necessity has compelled me to reserve for a future volume.

COLUMBIA COLLEGE, NEW YORK,

February, 1895.

CONTENTS

PAGE

BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON, 3

ALEXANDER KIELLAND, 107

JONAS LIE, 121

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN, 155

CONTEMPORARY DANISH LITERATURE, 181

GEORG BRANDES, 199

ESAIAS TEGNER, 219

BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON

I

Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson is the first Norwegian poet who can in any sense
be called national. The national genius, with its limitations as well as
its virtues, has found its living embodiment in him. Whenever he opens
his mouth it is as if the nation itself were speaking. If he writes a
little song, hardly a year elapses before its phrases have passed into
the common speech of the people; composers compete for the honor of
interpreting it in simple, Norse-sounding melodies, which gradually work
their way from the drawing-room to the kitchen, the street, and thence
out over the wide fields and highlands of Norway. His tales, romances,
and dramas express collectively the supreme result of the nation's
experience, so that no one to-day can view Norwegian life or Norwegian
history except through their medium. The bitterest opponent of the poet
(for like every strong personality he has many enemies) is thus no less
his debtor than his warmest admirer. His speech has stamped itself upon
the very language and given it a new ring, a deeper resonance. His
thought fills the air, and has become the unconscious property of all
who have grown to manhood and womanhood since the day when his titanic
form first loomed up on the horizon of the